I flinched back, and sucked in a breath at the pain that erupted in my shoulder. As I turned to inspect it, I watched the zombie fall behind me. Beck shouted something, bringing my attention back to him as warmth seeped out of my shoulder and was absorbed up my the fabrics of my shirt. Beck was no where in sight, his words lost in the mass of zombies that separated us.

The wound on my shoulder stung, but I knew that it was no more than a graze, because I hadn't been the intended target. Had I not flinched, I doubted the bullet would have done so much as cause a slight draft as it whizzed by.

A zombie with pieces of its scalp torn off and missing, reached out and grabbed a hold of my wrist. With a grunt I managed to shoot it, but it was replaced with two more and soon I was pressed up against the door of the house. My last bullet was shot into a sickly looking corpse, so old you couldn't tell whether it was male or female, much less anything else. It fell at my feet, when its head hit the ground it gave a crack and split into two.

Disgusted, I kicked it away and only then did I have the space to give a good look around. About thirty or so zombies littered the ground, and I could see the last ten or so trying to get at the guys. I hurried over to help them out, and tripped over a body. I held my breath as my gun flew out of my hand, and I landed in the mass of decay. Quickly, I scrambled to get my feet and brush off the more grotesque things that managed to cling to my person. Something on the ground caught my eye, and as I leaned down to pick it up, a zombie reached for me.

I scooped up the object and stomped on the zombies head in a solid movement. My boot went through the squishy skull, and the zombie didn't move again. The thing in my hand, I recognized as Beck's mother's necklace. The shot of a gun made me jump, and after quickly throwing the black cord around my neck, I ran over and pulled a zombie off of Michael. I didn't have any weapons that I could quickly grab, so I simply wrestled it to the ground. The thing felt no pain, which became clear as I was unable to do anything to properly kill it.

After a moment or two the zombie got the upper hand, and I was now on my back, punching at it, trying to keep its claw like fingernails well enough away from my face. For the most part I'd been keeping my eyes off its face, but now it was all I could do to not look away. Its eyes were a glazed over sickly shade of yellow, and its cheeks were sunken in. It smelled absolutely foul, and it took all I had not to stop fighting just to gag at the scent.

The zombie had a few missing teeth but that didn't falter its attempts to take a bite out of my flesh. I started to feel around the area, and finally found something, a rock it felt like. I brought the object up and smashed it into the side of the zombie's head, and it fell side ways. I rolled up to my knees and brought the rock down a few more times, until the zombie didn't so much as twitch with the breeze.

With heavy breaths I dropped the rock and sat back on my feet, taking a second to look around. Cody was no where to be seen, which made my heart beat unnaturally in my ears. I took another look around, searching the ground for his body.

"Cody ran off, taking a few zombies that chased after him," Chester said, when I caught his eye.

He looked like crap, a gash near his temple still bled small streams of blood, though it looked like the majority of the blood had stopped, and he had a nice black eye. His clothes were torn and covered in blood, most of it, I hoped, was not his.

Michael threw down his gun, as the barrel had become so clogged with zombie remains that it was now useless. He looked over at me, and gave a lopsided smile, "Kodi, if I didn't know any better I'd say you were a zombie," he said, looking like he was trying very hard not to laugh at my appearance.

I saw Beck look over at me sharply, his gaze taking me in, "How did that happen?" he asked, looking kind of angry.

My lips formed a frown on their own accord as he walked towards me, not bothering to look at where, or what he was stepping on, "I tripped," I mumbled as he got close.

Something sparked in his eye, and he shook his head. I gave a brief smile, unable to hold onto the slight amusement.

"Kodi," someone, Chester, said from where he stood. He was looking down at something, and I stepped around Beck to see what it was.

Chester backed away as I drew near, until it was just me looking down at the body. The boys stood behind me, and Mabel lay on the ground in front of me. She didn't have any bite marks on her, but she had some how been shot by someone in the confusion. It didn't surprise me really, as she had been acting like a zombie during her final moments.

I suspected that the illness that so many were getting had taken a hold of her mind, and made her hallucinate near the end, but I knew deep in my heart that the actions leading up to her death had been clear minded. Mabel had likely been angry that we had come to a place where I was accepted, and she it seemed, was given nothing more than an ounce of pity from a few people on a judging panel.

There was no doubt in my mind she did this as an effort to destroy something I was only just starting to love, something I had only just begun to think of my home. The fact that her deeds had costed who knows how many lives today made my stomach churn, but somehow it felt better knowing she had in the end, destroyed herself as well.

Nothing but bitterness was felt towards the body that lay among rotting corpses. I wiped my hands against my shirt, trying to get most of the nasty off before pushing a stray strand of hair behind my ear. With a deep breath, which I immediately regretted as the smell of decomposing human flesh met my nose, I turned away from her, and Chester stepped towards me.

"Cupcake, I'm sorry about your-" he started but I waved my hand to cut off his words.

I looked over his shoulder, towards the wall as I spoke, not wanting to meet any of their eyes in case there was blame laced in their irises, "she wasn't my sister, not really. She was a girl who knew of the things I went through, and chose to make them worse whenever she could. While I'm not happy she died, I'm not very sad that she finally felt the consequence of at least one of her little schemes."

There was quiet, and both Beck and Michael turned away after a second, talking about what was next. I managed to drag my eyes over to Chester who had his lips pressed into a tight line. He took a step towards me, and then another, until he was wrapping his arms around my shoulders and hugging me tightly.

"You're allowed to hate her, Kodi," he said, shuffling his feet. He was shuffling as if we were slow dancing in an even slower circle, but that's not what got to me.

His words. Even when I had stopped thinking of her as my sister, even when I knew that this whole infestation, the breach in the wall, the food problem, all of it was her fault... I still felt like I wasn't allowed to hate her. Like something inside me wouldn't let me do it, but as Chester's words sank in I closed my eyes and let myself finally be fully free of all the cages set upon me by the house I had lived in, by the step-mother who hated me for being born, by the half sister who had gone out of her way in almost every day, to make things that much harder.

A single tear escaped my eye, and I squeezed them shut tight, refusing to let any more tears fall. One was enough to mourn the life I had been given. Now it was time to start living the one I had chosen, with the people I knew wanted me around. The one tear was not for my step-mother, or even Mabel, but for the Kodi who had just died with them. After a moment I gathered my thoughts and opened my eyes. Chester had turned us into a one eighty. His back was now to Mabel, and mine was to the others.

Which was why as I cracked open my eyes to thank the boy who had immediately claimed me as his best friend, the boy who had accidentally given me my first kiss, who I knew was always there to defend me, all I could do was clutch him closer as a voice screamed.

Mabel had risen up, and her eyes were glazed over, yellow tinting them. I was frozen in shock and terror, but Chester shoved me away from him, throwing himself backwards at the same time. We were both weaponless, and since Chester had thrown himself backwards, he couldn't even properly fight Mabel off as her teeth sunk into his neck and she tore out a chunk of flesh.

I had fallen back, landing on my butt on the pavement, and now watched in horror as Chester looked at me, gasping for air that refused to work it's way through his damaged neck. Words didn't come out of his mouth, but I watched as he mouthed two words over and over. As the light started to ebb away from his eyes, I saw Mabel's dead body go in for another mouthful of his flesh, and I lost all sense of control. I launched myself at her and knocked her away, we rolled until she smashed into the curb of the sidewalk, and then I was sitting up. I barely felt the pain in my side, or the refreshed pain of my shoulder as I looked around for some sort of weapon.

Mabel sat up before I could find one, and reached for me. I barely remembered what came next, I grabbed onto her shoulders, and shoved her back. Her neck hit the curb in such a way that I heard the small crack. She was still a new zombie, so it didn't kill her. I yanked her shoulders back up and shoved her down on the curb several more times until her neck was limp. Her arms still reached out to grab me, and I scrambled off of her.

Behind me I could hear Michael sobbing, but I tuned it out as I saw a broken metal mailbox lid lying in the grass. I picked it up, and brought it down hard on Mabel's neck. The first attempt was laughable, as the lid slid to the slide and merely cut her throat. Greenish red zombie sludge that served as blood came out, and i gritted my teeth. Several attempts later, and Mabel's head was now sloppily cut off of her body. She still growled and tried to bit, but with no body, she wouldn't ever get any sort of meal any time soon.

I stood up, and back off of her. My arms were covered in her blood, and I knew I had splatters on my face from trying to decapitate her. All of this though, was insignificant as I turned to look back at Michael, who still cried over Chester's lifeless body, and Beck who was looking at me with an expression I didn't dare try to decipher, in case it was disgust at what I had just done to Mabel.